The Best, the Last

 Haze

One day, just when I was going to go to bed at night, I found someone knocking at the door outside.  It was Peggy, my best friend. I was so surprised to see her. "What's wrong with you?" I asked. "He has gone, and will never come back." Saying desperately, she rushed to my arms and couldn't help crying. That day was her 19-year-old birthday.

The following story was told by Peggy that night about Jimmy, her boyfriend. They were regarded as the ideal couple in our minds before. However, not everything proceeds smoothly without a hitch.

The day before, Peggy received a call from Jimmy, who asked her for a date. Peggy thought that Jimmy had made a mistake for the date of her birthday. However, she still arrived at the garden park near her house.  Jimmy was already there, and gave her a big hug.

"I have something special for you. Would you please close your eyes and follow me?"

 "You must regard today as my birthday, but it is tomorrow." Peggy chuckled and said.

 "I know that tomorrow is your birthday. But I want to celebrate it today, since today nobody else greets you except me. You belong to me."

Jimmy’s magnetic voice made Peggy feel satisfied. She closed her eyes and followed him with their hands fisted together. When they stopped, Jimmy told her to open her eyes. There was a wonderful portrait of her in front of them. Peggy had never known that Jimmy had such talent for painting. She was so moved, and her eyes were moist with tears. Jimmy wiped her tears out tenderly and caressed her.

"Do you like it? It's my birthday gift for you."

"Oh yes! How can you do that? It's amazing!"  

Jimmy smiled and gave her another gift. He let her dig out the box in the soils behind them to it.

"It is firework, isn't it?" As they opened it together, Peggy asked with full of excitement and astonishment. They shoot off them at last to celebrate the day belonging to them. Seeing the fireworks spreading out in the blue sky, Peggy had a sense of fantasy and romance. She even thought that she was in a real magic world with Jimmy.

However, she found Jimmy suddenly disappeared the next day. His mobile phone couldn't be connected, and no one answered the call in his house. When she went to his house, she found it empty without anything. The neighbor told her that the whole family had immigrated to Canada. They all left in the morning.

She was extremely shocked. She didn't even know how she came back home. That evening, the time she found it too hard to swallow the soft birthday cake, her mum gave her a letter from Jimmy as she forgot it previously. Peggy felt her hands trembling when she got the letter. The date showed that it was posted three days ago:

"I have to say that my family and I will go to Canada after three days. I have to leave on your birthday, and won't come back. I dare not say goodbye to you directly. I can't even imagine the time you saw this letter. I am very sorry.

However, I want to give you the happiest birthday wish in your life. I have prepared as much as I can to give you a big surprise. I have been drawing your portrait for nearly one month. Every line that I have drawn is full of my love and guilt.

I love you, but I have to leave. I wish I could give you the best, even though that will be the last. It's just like the sparks of the fireworks. No matter how glaring they are, they will disappear in the end. I am sorry."

I feel sad every time I think about this story. The best always exists in the last, since no more will be beyond it.

We can't find the best until we know that will be the last, can we?

(23/10/2005)